Home Page › Forums › Discussions › General independent garage chat › AA patrols no longer assisting smart motorway breakdowns over safety concerns
- This topic has 32 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 3 years, 6 months ago by Eddie Bamber.
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LeviGuest
Opinions are like arse holes. Everyone has got one.
Rickymint1952GuestThey’re not smart at all. I call them DUMB motorways, and as I can’t practically avoid using them with the distances I frequently need to cover, I treat the inside lane as the hard shoulder, and never drive in it until it’s time for me to exit.
I’d rather be a middle lane hogger than plough into the back of a broken down vehicle!
John PisanoGuestNot enough cameras for breakdowns but plenty of cameras for speeding penaltys
Bob SmithGuest“Our motorways are the most dangerous in Europe ” Utter tosh. We have the safest roads in Europe. A simple google search will confirm that. If FEWER people are killed on a smart motorway than a traditional motorway with a hard shoulder, how can they be more dangerous? It’s a stupid argument to have. Many fatalities you see in the news are on the hard shoulder, they are not safe places.
Emily nortonGuestIt is terrible.My car broke down and the steering went.I would have been killed if I had been on a smart motorway.I no longer go on the m4 now and will try and avoid m6
BogdanGuestOh man, the amount of stupid comments here is unbelievable. So you want to boicot the motorways. I would dread the day when all that trafic ends up on A roads. You wait and see then overtaking and deaths. It’s easy, don’t drive it like you stole it. Preventive driving is what keeps you out of trouble.
W N JenkinsGuestSurely the hard shoulder is the safest place, get out of the vechicle on the passengers side and over the fence if possible, these smart motorways as has been proved are a disaster waiting to happen.
I wouldn’t want to see anyone sit in their vehicle for any length of time waiting foer a recovery
Back to the normal hard shoulder is the best way to go, we may then avoid further deaths in these lanes.John BamfordGuestHard shoulders were deemed essential when we thought travelling at 70 miles per hour was dangerous Why the hell have we got rid of some of them now? Its speed on the cheap!
JimGuestCan’t blame AA as there is no suitable risk assessment to deal with this hazard. Nobody in their right mind would stop or stay in their car on the smart motorway. They are the goverments easy answer to increasing motorway capacity and they don’t care about safety. Eventually however we all need to realise that the private car will be banned due to congestion, emissions and pollution. We need to abandon smart motorways and spend money on the railways but not HS2
DaveGuestAll the time and money they have spent (and are still spending) on this absurdity should have been put towards doing the job properly: Adding extra lanes, and retaining the hard shoulder.
And, instead of spending hundreds of billions on HS2, improve and subsidise rail freight, and get some of those lorries off the road.YvonneGuestThis is interesting…as AA has NOT told
its recovery drivers this yet. ??? Strange
that, dont you think? AA recovery drivers will
stop.and recover on smart motorways once highways
agency have blocked the lane to enable recovery.
Bit of scaremongering reporting here possibly?James WalpoleGuestIn any other industry health and safety would have intervene
castrolrobGuestLets be honest here,smart motorways were introduced to save money over building a proper 8 or 10 lane carriageway and any option involving saving money or cutting staff is almost always gonna be second best. What did they expect? People broken down in an active motorway lane to IMPROVE safety?dear god….
Eddie BamberGuestAlan Meredith has it right, but AA Patrols are under enormous pressure for job performance targets. They can’t afford to be sitting round waiting for the Highways Agency or the Police to attend – and that leads to dangerous corners being cut. Also, it’s not as simple as the Highways Agency putting a rope on the vehicle and towing it up to the safe point. Sometimes, the towing eye is missing from the vehicle’s toolkit or in the case of some automatic vehicles, they lock in ‘Park’ and won’t roll if the battery is flat. The Highways Agency are not equipped to carry out vehicle recovery and leave themselves open to claims for damage. Getting rid of dangerous not-Smart motorways is the only solution.
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